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“VSU's conduct was illegal, destructive, and disrespectful. The Fired Six greatly appreciate this first step towards vindication and look forward to being made whole by VSU, whether through settlement or in court.”- Joshua Erlich, the attorney representing six former VSU Agricultural Research Station professors who were abruptly fired last December.
A person holds a sign stating "reinstate the fired six now" outside of Virginia State University on Feb. 24, 2026. The university fired six faculty members from its agricultural research station in December 2025. (Photo by Nathaniel Cline/Virginia Mercury)
By Nathaniel Cline
The Virginia State University Board of Visitors will meet on Friday, roughly a week after the legal team representing six professors fired late last year filed discrimination complaints against the university with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights.
Faculty leaders have recommended the instructors, dubbed The Fired Six, be reinstated and cited policy violations in the “reorganization” process that led to their terminations.
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Alexandria, faces three challengers in this fall's congressional midterm elections. Beyer is sharpening his campaign's focus to highlight voters' financial strains under Republican leadership. (Photo by Andrew Kerley/Virginia Mercury)
By Andrew Kerley
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Alexandria, joined a recent call with small business owners from around the country to discuss economic challenges Americans are facing due to rising healthcare, food and fuel costs, which he said are the result of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans not meeting their promise to lower costs.
Beyer — one of the richest members of Congress — said everything he does is informed by his “small business background” that keeps him attuned to the public’s fiscal frustrations. He is seeking a seventh congressional term.
Michael Carter Jr. stands on his family's 116-year-old farmland in Orange County, Va. One of the proposed routes of the Valley Link transmission line will encroach on the property, Carter says. (Photo by Shannon Heckt/Virginia Mercury)
By Shannon Heckt
“It started November 5th, 1910. My great-great-grandparents purchased this property for $722.50,” Michael Carter Jr. said at a picnic table outside the Orange County home where generations of his family have been born and died.
As insects chirp in the grass and cows mull around the pasture, Carter points to the tree line at the back of the property, on the other side of the creek that separates the property from his neighbor’s. That is where a portion of the proposed 115-mile, 765 kilovolt Valley Link transmission line will slice through, if state regulators approve the project.
COMMENTARY
By Roger Chesley
It’s not just that the administration of President Donald Trump, who’s proved repeatedly that he’s racist, wants to remove the name of Pearl Harbor hero Doris “Dorie” Miller from an aircraft carrier under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding – and name it for Trump, according to a published report.
The USS Doris Miller would be the first carrier named for a Black person. No carrier has been named for a sitting president, CNN reported recently.
By Jacob Fischler
A U.S. Postal Service rule restricting mail-in voting, like the executive order from President Donald Trump that spurred it, is unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said in a Friday order extending a freeze on the policy.
The Trump administration quickly appealed the order to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday.
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